


was it so far a fall?

by crownlessliestheking



Series: Feanorian Week 2021 [2]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-25 20:54:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30094995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownlessliestheking/pseuds/crownlessliestheking
Summary: Makalaurë no more, the greatest of the singers of the Noldor no more, but still sea-voiced is he. Still sea-voiced, yet the silence and the crash of waves against the homeward shore speaks more than any words, when he falls to his knees in front of his brothers, his son, his mother.
Series: Feanorian Week 2021 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2212536
Comments: 1
Kudos: 37





	was it so far a fall?

**Author's Note:**

> Day 2: Maglor! Man, this one exploded a bit on me, but hey, I absolutely loved writing this, and I love Maglor, too. I just thought a reunion would be neat, okay? Sue me. 
> 
> Unedited, I may need to return to clean it up. We'll see. Wrote most of this today.

Maglor: Childhood, Music & Songs of Power, **Elrond** & Elros, Kingship, Maglor’s Gap, **Redemption**

* * *

The far shore of Aman draws closer with every passing breath. It is not so very far now, and the immediacy of it is overwhelming. 

It creeps up on him, the tide drifting him in his lonely boat towards the sand- not of pearls, no, but glimmering nonetheless. Maglor closes his eyes, and he sees blood splattered upon them. When he opens them again, there is still red there, a faint smudge against the horizon, but it is the wrong shade, too little of it.

The water shallows beneath him, and the gentle rock of waves becomes a harsh push and pull, and he grips the side of the boat tight with both his hands, though the blackened, husk of his left burns with the use. Maglor does not think that wild Ossë will drown him here, but he has always been the most capricious of the Maiar- and the one against whom he has sinned the greatest.

The Lord of Waters may have forgiven him, such forgiveness that can be found, but there are those who have not. Who will not.

Maglor is not the bravest of his brothers- he never was, that fell to Maedhros, perhaps, though they were neither of them brave towards the end, only desperate. No, perhaps it was Celegorm, wild, unafraid of the darkness, bold even to the very end. But the truth is simpler than that: There is nothing left to fear. He will face them here, because the ocean called him home, and when he dreamed at the distant shore, it was no longer dreams of fading to an echo on the wind, but of dipping his hands into the tidal pools that ringed the rocky coast, and watching them come out clean, rather than bloodied. It was tipping his head back to the sky, to look at the Silmaril carried there, and feeling its accusatory light burn but not consume.

And so he journeyed, and so now, when the hull of his boat slides against the sand, he only stills it with a hum and jumps into the surf.

A wave slams into his side, soaks him to the bone from the waist down, but the water here is warm, welcoming, even to him.

He had forgotten that. He had forgotten the brightness in the sky, the perfect patience of the air- everything in the Blessed Lands is content with the knowledge that it has an eternity. Even the briny scent of the sea is fresh; it does not rasp down his throat, nor does the cool wind bite.

And the smudge of red at the shore has resolved itself into four different figures, all red-haired, and several dark-haired lingering nearby, all solemn.

He had not thought to find this welcome- or any at all- and yet as he sees his mother on the sand, her feet bare, dressed in the simple garb she favors, although the color is new, a stark, bone-white, Maglor cannot believe he thought she would not come.

For the first time in two Ages of the world, he sets foot on the shore of the uttermost West. He has spent more time in Middle Earth than here, first Beleriand and then the desolate coastline, he knows the seas to the east better, the worst of his crimes remain upon the land he left behind, and yet. Yet, he is home.

Makalaurë no more, the greatest of the singers of the Noldor no more, but still sea-voiced is he. Still sea-voiced, yet the silence and the crash of waves against the homeward shore speaks more than any words, when he falls to his knees in front of his brothers, his son, his mother.

He had not forgotten their faces- he could not-, but he had forgotten, what they looked like in happiness, without the Oath, without their sins weighing them down. Curufin is sharp as ever, but without the bitter twist to his mouth; Caranthir’s eyes are softer around the corners, and he breaks out into a smile, small but genuine at the sight of him; Ambarussar are here, and they are not worn-down as Maglor remembers them, resigned to the atrocities they must commit, no longer must they make futile arguments. Maedhros is the only one who looks as if he still carries the weight of the world upon his shoulders- still haunted, is his elder brother, though he is the first to step forward and clasp Maglor close, raising him from the sand to do so.

“I am sorry,” he murmurs, his voice rough.

“You are not forgiven,” are the first words Maglor utters in Aman. “But you are understood, brother.”

“That is all I ask, for now. We will speak of it later.” An offer, not a command, and Maglor nods. He has missed his brother so- even before, they would not speak, were it not necessary. There are many things between them that need to be mended, and Maglor cannot even face fire, without still seeing Maedhros silhouetted against a great crack in the earth, his hair aflame, cast in terrible red light, and then all of it vanishing, as he fell.

His eyes had been closed. He had been smiling. He is not smiling now.

“Yes.” Neither of them wish to speak of this, in front of others. Not yet.

Maedhros steps back, though he is reluctant to do so, and Maglor equally reluctant to let him go. For so long, he was alone. And before that, they only had each other.

But as he steps back, the rest of his brothers swarm in- the only one he doesn’t see is Celegorm, and Maglor tamps down on a flicker of panic that he has not yet been re-embodied, or that he holds a grudge. That was always Curufin’s domain, and yet Curvo is here, with an iron grip on his arm.

Maglor loosely wraps his arms around them in return- the twins, Caranthir, Curufin-, delicate as if they will vanish if he holds them as tightly as he wishes. But they do not disappear; they’re a solid weight against him, Curvo smells faintly of smoke from the forge, Caranthir of a different sort of smoke, near the same as the strange habit he’d picked up from the Haladin, and Ambarussa of wood and water. And over it all, the fresh-salt of the sea.

“I missed you so,” he murmurs. “When you died, each of you, it was as if a part of myself was gone, too.”

“Certainly, you were the only one left to deal with Nelyo at the end,” Caranthir mutters. “A fate I would not wish on anyone. Not even you, despite your _poetry_. Pleasure to see that hasn’t deserted you.”

“Must you insult me even at a touching moment?” Maedhros asks, exasperated. But fondly so.

“As if we have not all said worse to one another,” Amrod- or Amras, the voice is muffled, and he cannot see which of them spoke- says. “As if Curvo is not the worst culprit among us, for that.”

“I will not be faulted for speaking my mind,” Curufin says with great dignity, pulling away now. He has never been tactile- as a child, he would cry, if he was handled by anyone other than Atya for too long.

The others pull back too, one by one; Caranthir is the last to do so, and Maglor wisely does not comment on this. For all his sharp words, he knows under them is the same current of sincerity, and understanding. If Maedhros had gotten them all to cooperate through sheer force of will, it had been Caranthir and Maglor who had the more subtle art of it, especially to maneuver Curufin and Celegorm into agreement. He flickers a smile his brother’s way, and is gratified to see it returned. A rare thing, yet one he still treasures.

“I will forgive you speaking to them first,” his mother says from somewhere to his left. “If only because you had little choice about it. They’ve missed you terribly.”

Maglor turns to face her, and words wither and die upon his tongue. What songs are there to sing, of his mother? He does not know them, he does not know how Valinor thinks of her; he only has his own memories, and those he could not dwell on without weeping. Even now, it aches to look at her. She, too, is touched by grief and sorrow, no less acute for her never having seen Beleriand. The sand shifts and hisses under her feet as she crosses the distance between them.

“My son,” Nerdanel says. Her hand cups his cheek; he had forgotten the ways in which they were calloused, the raw strength and warmth in her fingers. They tremble now, even as he lists into the touch. “You are returned to me, last of my children to do so, but not the least in my heart.”

“Mother,” is all he can say in return, just that, over and over. Elrond’s gaze is inscrutable, heavy as a stone upon his chest, but Maglor can only look at Nerdanel, feel her work-roughened hands against his skin, and weep.

“You are home,” she says, fiercely, and she, who had a hand in his creation, who shaped him just as much as his father, pulls him into an embrace as if it is enough to heal him entire, to hold him together.

Maglor buries his face in the mess of her hair- she had never kept it back in anything but plain work braids, away from her face and pinned up, especially when she was working with clay-, and breathes in the stone dust and heat and faintly citrus scent of her.

“I am sorry,” he rasps out.

“Oh, my son,” Nerdanel murmurs. “I know. Yet this is the easiest of the apologies you must make, for I have forgiven you already. How could I not, my strong-voiced son, when you tremble so before me? How could I not, when I knew how you suffered across the sea? Can you forgive me, too, for leaving you all to your father’s temper, for not crossing the sea with the great hosts of the Valar and bringing you back with me? It was too late for so many of my sons, but not my two eldest.”

“Ammë.” This, from Maedhros, with the air of an argument that has been had many times.

“You are forgiven,” Maglor says instead, easy. “It is- nothing that I would have asked of you. Nothing that I thought to ask, either; it is enough to see you here, and know-,” here, his voice breaks, as it has never done before. Breaks, because he knows that he is not the son that she raised any longer; Beleriand had been a crueller, harsher parent than either of his, and the Oath worse. “You ought not to forgive me,” Maglor manages. “I do not know how you can. What I did- what we did-,”

“It is unforgivable?” Nerdanel asks, wry in her way. He had forgotten, too, that she sounds just as Maedhros does. Rather, that Maedhros sounds just like her, when he is managing their brothers. “It is a very good thing that I am your mother, is it not? Us mothers are particularly good at forgiving the unforgivable, simply because of our children being the ones who require it. And-what else would I do, if not love you?”

“What else indeed?” adds another voice, soft. It is one that Maglor has not heard since the hosts of Valinor were first seen, glittering gold and blinding on the ocean.

Elrond.

Maedhros gives him a knowing look, and steps back. “Come along,” he announces, in the cheerful, forceful tones of an older sibling. “Let us return- there’s dinner to be made, and Ambarussa, will you go find Tyelko? He would have been here had we much warning of your return- or any at all, beyond a dream and the sight of a distant ship-, but he has been hunting with Aredhel of late.”

“Some friendships only required a little death to return them to their original state,” Amrod says, bracing.

“And some only required a little death to never come into being at all,” Amras finishes, amused. “Turgon hates us even more, and Aredhel was always spiteful. We’ll go, though. Come along, Curvo, you’re the best at wrangling him.”

Curufin has very little choice, as the twins simply grab him, one on each arm, and march him off between them.

Caranthir simply sighs, and looks to Maedhros. “Very subtle of you, Nelyo. Should I bother finding an excuse?”

Maedhros pinches between his brows. “You’re the best cook of us all. Is that not excuse enough?”

“It’ll do. And you’ll be providing assistance, so there, now you’ve one too,” Caranthir finishes, smug. There truly is something lighter about him, though there is also a grief that he wears like a cloak, different from Maedhros’ own. “Come along, brother. We’ll have something palatable by the time the rest of them get back.”

A lingering look from Maedhros, before he turns away. “He’s still a tyrant in the kitchen like you wouldn’t believe. But we’ll see you.”

Nerdanel regards this all, amused herself, and Elrond lets out a breath that could nearly be a laugh.

“And they say that those two were the most diplomatic of you all?” She barks out a laugh. “’Tis no wonder, you were always a fractious bunch, my sons. Poor Maitimo, it was all he could do to keep you from each other’s throats at times.”

“He’s gotten practiced at it,” Maglor says numbly. Just as he had become practiced in leading them, wrapping himself in authority, Oath-granted though it may have been. He had stayed it longer than any other, but he had not truly vanquished it. And he had not hated it as much as Maglor had, nor the twins. Nerdanel regards him calmly, reading his thoughts from his face.

“Yes. He has. And he and I had words, about the tender care that he showed you all. Young Elrond here, too, though I mean tender in the less sardonic sense with him,” she adds. Elrond, for his part, looks faintly nonplussed as being referred to as young.

“They raised me,” he says simply. “As best they were able to. It is more than I might have expected.”

“They kidnapped you,” Nerdanel says, tart. “They drove your mother to the sea- and Elwing is here, you ought to visit her as well-, and slaughtered your people.”

“They have done unforgivable things, as you say,” Elrond answers. He inclines his head, once, slowly. It is a gesture Maglor recognizes from his brother, conceding a point well-made. They had taught Elrond and Elros both the proper etiquette for debate. “And yet, you have forgiven them. Grandmother-,” and this must be a point between them, because Nerdanel heaves out a breath, Elrond smiles, faint, “if you have forgiven them, knowing what they did after they left you, why should I not forgive them both, knowing what they did before taking me in?”

He turns to Maglor now, his face implacable and grave, his eyes dark as storm clouds.

“Why should I not? Atya had much to say about it, but what say you, Maglor son of Fëanor? What say you for yourself?”

“For what I did to your family, there is nothing to say,” Maglor tells him. The words are torn from his throat; there is nothing smooth nor practiced about them. “But you and your brother- I tried to do my best, by you. We both did.”

“You were a softer parent than Maedhros was. Elros hated him, you know.”

“He hated us both, and rightly so,” Maglor corrects. Those memories are not tainted for him, though; he remembers the boys flinching from Maedhros’ face, from his own touch. But he remembers warm bodies pressed against his front on stormy nights, tucked under the covers and close for protection. He remembers lessons in song and speaking, as were his purview, he remembers the very first time he had made Elrond laugh, and he remembers thinking: _at least some good has come of this. At least there is laughter yet._

“Not towards the end,” Elrond says, quiet. “Neither of us hated you then. You were our fathers- do not say otherwise. You were our fathers, the only ones we knew, and you left us. I have had three children since, one who left me, and two whom I left on Middle Earth. I may see none of them again, and though I am old- no matter what Grandmother believes-, it was the most difficult choice to make.

“From us, you took the only family we had.” There is little kindness, in what Elrond says. When Maglor turns to his mother, he sees that there are tears in his eyes.

“No,” Nerdanel says, and she does not lift a hand to wipe them away, but lets them flow freely down her cheeks. “Do not look to me for advice, my son. I did not leave- your father left me, and then you all left me, and that is the way of things, for children to leave their mothers. But I always knew that you would return.”

_You knew you would not return when you left them_ , goes unsaid.

“I would not have given you false promises. I could not,” he finally says, when the silence stretches too long. Never has he enjoyed such a lack of sound. “And you were old enough to care for yourselves, though when we sent you to him, we knew that Gil-Galad would welcome you both.”

“No,” Elrond says. His eyes flash, and for a moment, it seems as if the Lord of the Breath of Arda himself is here, looking at him. “The truth.”

“That is the truth,” Maglor insists.

“Then it is not the whole of it.”

“We would not drag you into a fight we would not win,” Maglor tries.

“No.” Nerdanel, this time, though her voice is softer. “My son, you know. It was not a fight.”

“You did not need to be tainted by us, when the Valar came,” he tries again.

“No.” A third time, this from Elrond, though it is quiet. The intensity of his gaze abates. “I looked for you. I told my own children of you.”

This, more than anything, is what hurts.

When Maglor speaks, it is halting, fumbling. His voice does not sound as his own.

“I was ashamed. The Oath abated, when we were caring for you. It was ever-present, but easier to ignore. One Silmaril lost to us, and that the only one within our reach, and still we knew that Angband was unassailable.”

“You would have tried, though,” Nerdanel puts in. “Had the armies of Valinor not come. You would have tried.”

Maglor inclines his head. “We would have had to. But they did come, and we knew. We knew, what we were, at the end of it. We knew the blood on our hands. And when they were winning, the Oath sang. And though I did not, Maedhros knew that the victory would be hollow. Were we to get them, we would be hunted, no doubt. Were we to fail, we would die, and we could not- you understand, that we could not bring you into that. And to choose, between you and our Oath, between that which made us lift our hands to kin thrice, which wrought so much evil, which would not care of two lives, no matter how dear they were to us-,”

He cannot continue; he looks away.

“There was no choice.”

“There is always a choice,” Nerdanel says, distant. “But there is only the choice which you make, and what comes of it. It was ill-done, yet what else was there to do?”

“I left my children,” Elrond says again. “And there was no choice there, either. The Age of Elves upon Middle Earth is done, my daughter shall see the dawning of the Age of Men, and she will be alone. My sons will not be, for they have each other, though whether they will journey here, I cannot see. But I can hope.”

His theme resolved, the solemnity of his demeanor ebbs as the tide.

“And so, I have heard what you have said, and so I understand it.”

Now, it is Elrond who reaches for him, guides their foreheads to rest gently together as Maglor once did to soothe him as a child, when his foresight presented itself in nightmares of fire and drowning.

Maglor lets out a breath, as his son pulls away.

“Atar,” Elrond says, smiling. He is so much older now, wiser, and Maglor’s heart aches to see it, near as much as it had ached to hear tell of Elros passing, to watch the great wave that swallowed Númenor and most of his legacy with it, near as much as it had ached to hear of the fate that befell Celebrimbor, decades too late to do a single thing about.

And still, Elrond looks at him, and the sum of his evils, and smiles.

“Welcome home,” he says.

“It is good to see you,” Nerdanel adds, warm but brisk. Finally, she brushes the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand. “Shall we go, then? I ought to ensure your brothers do not destroy the kitchen.”

Behind her is the land, lush and green even on the Lonely Isle. Behind her, and ahead of him, there is _family_ , those he has not seen in two Ages of the world, those he thought he would never see again, and even beyond them, those who he does not yet know how to face.

But he will.

Maglor has never been the bravest of his brothers, but there is courage to be had here, past the end of all things.

“Yes,” Maglor answers. He does not look back at the ocean, and with every step forwards, his arm linked with his mother’s, and Elrond at his side, the sound of waves fades to ringing nothing.


End file.
